


Worse Contest Ever

by Animalfeelings



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Comedy, Crack Treated Seriously, Demons, Ghost Hunters, Horror, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Other, ghost - Freeform, will add more tags soon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-11
Updated: 2019-11-12
Packaged: 2020-12-07 21:41:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20982812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Animalfeelings/pseuds/Animalfeelings
Summary: Every fan's dream is to get the chance to go 'Ghoul hunting' with the boys. Unfortunately for Maya, this turns out to be her worse nightmare.





	1. Long Trip

**Author's Note:**

> English is not my first language!!!!!

So this is what it felt like? To finally win something? To finally feel like you had something right happened to you?

Maya's excitement was out of this world, she just finished a called she didn't expect to ever get and right now she felt like she was living a dream.

"So? You got it?" Asked her boyfriend, Frank. Maya put her phone down on her bed and stared at her boyfriend with a huge smile on her face.

"CONGRATULATIONS!" Her boyfriend exclaimed, as he jumped from their bed, picked his girlfriend up and started swinging her around in circles. He was a giant, 6'4 and very well built, he could easily her small fragile 5'1 frame like she was some sort of rag-doll, at least he was a very gentle giant. 

"Wait! Put me down! I gotta start packing!" Maya exclaimed. Her boyfriend stopped swinging her around and put her back on their bed. 

"Packing? When are you leaving?"

Well they had a delay while picking a winner... I leave in 2 days. For what seems to be 3 to 4 weeks, depending how long it takes to film. They want me there for the full see the full process" She explained.

A month ago she entered a contest, it was to have the opportunity to join the hosts of her favorite show in one of their little adventures. A 'ghost hunting' show called Buzzfeed Unsolved, hosted by Ryan Bergara and Shane Madej. Before she even watched the show, Maya never had any interest in ghost or even ghost hunting shows, she always felt they were very staged. One day while scrolling down YouTube she stumble upon a video on her recommendations: Buzzfeed Unsolved: The Demonic Goatman's Bridge. She watched it out of curiosity and ever since she was hooked on the show. She loved their dynamic, a believer and a skeptic, their humor and constant banter. She also loved the cases, even though she never considered herself a believer or a skeptic, she always felt she was somewhere in the middle, struggling between believing or just not. As time went by she met many amazing people from the fandom, many great artist, writers etc. They had a very welcoming and respectful fandom, something that Maya loved due to the fact that at the beginning she considered herself "one of the old ones", at 26 years old. Obviously she wasn't the oldest fan at all, but their fandom was mostly people who were way younger than her, not that she or anyone minded. 

When Maya entered the contest, she fully believed she wasn't going to get it, it was a simple entry; a quick story of how they discovered the show and why they wanted to join the boys for an investigation. Very simple and straight to the point. Maya's entry was pretty much her explaining how she wasn't a believer or skeptic, how she also was a film student and hoped to even gain some experience in the process. Sadly once she entered she didn't heard from them for a long time, many fans speculated that they were "retracting" the idea of bringing a fan to an investigations, too risky, too much paperwork. They went silent for an entire month, without any social media updates or anything. Then one night they posted "We found the one!" and everyone went crazy. Who did they picked? Who was the lucky winner? Maya strongly believed it wasn't her. 

"I can't wait to see you all scared!" Her boyfriend said while he helped make her bags for her trip. She couldn't wait either, everything was still so surreal, she was going to be one her favorite show. 

The person that had called her was one of Buzzfeed's producers, it felt like a relief that it wasn't the "ghoul boys" calling, she wasn't ready yet for them. The producer explained to her that it took them so long to pick a winner because the boys were busy picking the winner themselves, carefully reading each submission and making a short list of possible choices. The producer told her they had thousands of submissions and they really believed it was going to take them even longer to decide. Maya felt incredibly lucky, she was so used to always losing or just never being considered for anything, this felt like a miracle. 

A huge part of Maya was also incredibly worried, she wondered how she was going to be on camera. Not worried much about her physical appearance but mostly her personality, she deeply hoped she didn't get camera shy or panicked. Her boyfriend and friends were more excited than her, Maya as a bundle of anxiety and worries. How would the fans receive her? Was anyone going to be mad that she won and others didn't? Too many questions were going through her mind. Her luggage was ready, just one more day till she boarded a plane to California. She couldn't sleep well, her boyfriend assure her over and over that it was going to be okay, that she was't going to "screw everything up". Maya tried her best to calm down, to relax and look forward to her trip. 

Another one of her biggest fear was the whole idea of ghost hunting, even though she wasn't really that much of a "believer", she was somewhat terrified of being alone in a dark abandoned place, although the have said multiple times that they places they went ghost hunting were private properties. It still wasn't enough to calm Maya down. She really didn't wanted to be like Ryan during a hunt, but she was definitely nowhere near what Shane was during hunts. The dark didn't scared her, people scared her. What if someone had trespassed the property and was just hiding in the dark waiting to strike? A lot of horror movie scenarios went through her mind. 

In a blink of an eye... the day had come. Maya felt like the past two days wen't out in a blink, she felt like she didn't had enough time to mentally prepare herself to meet the Buzzfeed Unsolved team or go to a haunted place. Now she was being dragged down the airport by her Mother, her father, and her boyfriend Frank. They had hugged her and kissed her and wished her good luck and to have fun. She knew she was going to miss her boyfriend, they had been together for so long that it felt incredibly weird for her to be away from him for that long period of time. Maya looked back at her family one last time and waved at them goodbye. 

Her flight was pretty pleasant, five hours from humid West Palm beach, FL to Los Angeles, CA. Her entire flight Maya read messages from her friends, those in and outside the fandom, many of those messages from people in the fandom were request "Oh can you ask Shane this?" She knew damn well she wasn't going to do any of that, the least she wanted was to bother them with thousands of questions. She read in a lot of fan encounters and experiences, trying her best to prepare herself to what she was going to experience, although she knew she wasn't going to have a short meet and greet, Maya was going to spend almost an entire month with them and the whole Unsolved team. She tried to look at the whole thing as she was doing some sort of business trip, she was going to work. 

Maya arrived exactly at 4pm, she was given instructions to call her "guide" and wait the them to pick her up at the airport. Maya did as she was instructed, called her guide and waited with her luggage by the pick up area of the airport. She wondered if she was going to meet the team that day or the next, she looked at her reflection on the airport's windows. She hoped she was presentable enough for it, wearing black jeans and a simple black V-Neck, she had let her dyed orange hair down. Her hair only reached her shoulders and Maya realized it was very messy, her boyfriend always called it "lunatic's hair" due to how easy it was for it to get all crazy and frizzy. Even though she was from Florida, poor girl wasn't tanned like she wished she was, her skin was pretty light with freckles. Maya desperately tried to calm her hair down, she couldn't meet the team with a lion's hair. She reached into one of her bags and grabbed a purple beanie, easy fix for her hair issues. 

Just as Maya was putting on her beanie, she received a text from her guide. They had arrived to pick her up from the airport. Maya immediately identified the black SUV picking her up, she almost felt like she was taking an Uber or Lyft, part of her wished there was more communications apart from calls and random guides. The driver, middle aged woman, got out of the car to help Maya with her luggage, once they were done the driver gave Maya a letter that has her schedule for the day. 

"I'll take your things to your hotel. I'll be dropping you at Buzzfeed's headquarters. The team is really excited to meet you!" The driver said. Maya felt a little relaxed now, least she didn't had to worry about her luggage at the moment but then a huge wave of nerves and anxiety hit her. She was meeting the team today. 

"You're really nervous. Aren't you?" The driver interrupted her anxious thoughts.

"Um...Yes. Very nervous actually" She responded, looking down at her phone kinda embarrassed. The female driver laughed "That's understandable. But trust me, they're really nice group, specially the boys are really sweet and welcoming. My name is Harriet by the way" Harriet smiled at Maya from the rearview mirror. 

"Nice to meet you Harriet." Maya said smiling back at her driver. The drive was kinda short, Harriet explained to her what she needed to do once she walked in into the headquarters, show her ID and wait. That was it. Harriet left with Maya's luggage. Maya watched her leave, she took a deep breath and turned around to look at Buzzfeed's building, it was pretty normal looking building, she saw a lot of their interns and employees chatting around the premises of the building. 

"Calm the fuck down!" She told herself, little too loud than expected because it got a couple of people nearby her to turn around and stared at her. She tried to ignored the stares and quickly made her way inside the building. Once inside she walked towards the receptionist desk. 

"Hello! Welcome to Buzzfeed, how can I help you?" 

Maya started reaching inside her bag for her ID, "Hi, I'm Maya Davis, I'm -" She was interrupted "Oh It's you! Sorry, just give me your ID, I'll call Devon." Maya handed her ID and just stood there. Her heart was racing fast, she was glad there was no way the receptionist could hear her heart. It almost felt like her heart wanted to come out of her chest. "Alright, you can sit there. Devon will come down soon." 

Maya didn't had a chance to sit down when she heard her name one more time. "Oh Maya!" Exclaimed another woman, who was making her way towards her from the elevator. "It's a pleasure to finally meet you. Sorry we've been so distant. It has been pretty busy for us." The blond woman apologized to Maya while she reached of to shake her hand.

"Oh is okay. I understand" 

"Well, before we head over to meet the rest of the team, I'll need you to fill some boring paperwork if you don't mind."

After what felt like hundred pages she had to sign, they were finally making their way to meet the rest of the team. Maya tried her best to compose herself, even when signing the papers she was shaking, which Devon teased her about it and told her "Don't worry we don't bite!" with a wink. It was going to be a long evening for Maya.

"They're all in here" Devon mentioned and pointed to one of the doors with the sign that said "Studio". Even with A/C, Maya felt like she was sweating buckets, she was pretty much praying it wasn't noticeable and that her make up hadn't melt from her sweating. Maya felt Devon gently pushing her forward, for her to open the door while Devon pulled out her phone.-Fuck she's recording me!- Maya thought panicking. With shaking hands Maya opened the door to the studio and made her way in.

"WELCOME!" 

Maya was received with a bunch of tiny confetti canons shooting at her face, even though they were pretty harmless, them hitting her in the face made her flinch. "Hey watch it! You're going to shoot her in the eye!" She heard Devon said behind her. Maya was speechless, she looked around the studio that was covered in balloons and confetti on the ground. There was a sign on one of the walls that said "Welcome to the Family!" It was a sweet surprise welcoming surprise. Maya's gaze landed on the team, she recognized most of them from past episode, some she didn't recognized due to them being mostly behind the scenes. To her wonderful horror, she noticed most of them were recording her, there was in fact a camera pointed right at her. She wasn't ready to be on camera right away, but it was happening and there was no way to stop it. 

"It's great to finally meet you!" Ryan mentioned, walking towards a still speechless Maya. "Sorry about shooting you with the canons, it was Shane's idea." He said as he reached over to Maya to shake her hands, she was still speechless but took Ryan's hand on a firm hand shake. 

" It was OUR idea! Don't put the blame on me." Shane was making his way to them, also ready to shake Maya's hand. He stopped for a second and looked at Ryan and then at Maya "Oh look! You're finally not the smallest ghoul boy." 

Devon playfully punch Shane on the shoulder "She just got here. Don't scare her away already!". Shane just laughed at Devon and went back to shaking Maya's hand, who still was dead quiet. 

"My apologies. Nice to finally meet you, Maya" Once she heard her name she snapped out of it. She probably looked like a damn zombie standing there, quiet and pale. 

"Um... Hi." That's all she could said at that moment. 

It was definitely going to be a long trip.


	2. Ready For Them

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maya finds out where they're going ghost hunting.  
Anxiety is a bitch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SORRY FOR THE DELAY  
I wasn't sure if I wanted to continue this story or not... I got attacked by 27632 ideas at once.

Not everything was fun and games in the Buzzfeed's headquarters, actually there was absolutely no fun in the headquarters. Maya came to realize how "fun and easy" they made it all look in their videos, articles etcetera. The amount of work that a video took, the amount of work that a small article or even a funny quiz took. It all took away people's views of Buzzfeed's, always being poked fun at for their articles, quizzes and videos. There was a lot of hard working people, a lot of running around to meet deadlines and bring up ideas. 

Maya spent two long days in meetings, orientations, and even some time with a counselor to make sure she was in good mental condition for the whole "ghoul hunting". Although that counselor meeting was more of a "Are you scared?" "Um a little?" "It's gonna be okay!" There wasn't anything really deep about it. She was treated like a regular employee, although wasn't give anything to do, just told everything they were going to do during those 4 weeks they were going to be working on their special episode.

"So... the time has come!" Announced Ryan, walking into the studio along with Shane. Maya was already there with the producers and rest of the team. In the past two days she had spent a really small amount of time with the boys, just small talk. Maya was mostly busy learning everything about the company and the show itself, all the safeties, all the procedures ... all the boring stuff. She even managed to calm herself down from her first meeting with the guys, she was more comfortable, still little hard for her to lose herself and freely talk with them and the crew.

"Maya, are you ready to find out where are we going...ghost hunting?" Shane asked, staring down at Maya who was sitting down next to Devon.

"I'm ready!" Maya surprised herself with how enthusiastic she sounded, she actually had gotten a lot more comfortable with them.

Shane and couple people on the crew started doing the sounds of drum rolls making the rest of them laugh.

"We are revisiting Waverly Hills Sanatorium!"

"The Haunted House of Waverly Hills Hospital" was Maya's favorite episode, there was something about that episode that always stuck with her and she could never figure out why. Everything about Waverly Hills fascinated Maya.

"You mentioned on your submission that it was your favorite episode," Shane commented, taking a seat between Maya and Devon. "and it's also one of our main locations to revisit in the future. It was perfect timing."

Maya was trying to contain her excitement, she didn't wanted to freak out and jump around like some kind of maniac.

"I - I can't wait!" Maya exclaimed,

"It's actually our first time bring more equipment to Waverly, including the Spirit Box. Probably taking more than just a few minutes on our-" Ryan stopped talking and made a face that looked like he was trying to find the right words to say.

Shane leaned over and whispered to Maya, as if Ryan couldn't heard him. "He was wondering if you're okay with doing a solo investigation?" His voice was comically low, which made some in the studio crack up laughing.

"I'm right here. And yes, I was wondering if you were going to be okay doing a solo?" Asked Ryan.

The whole attention went to Maya, which was kind of unnerving for her. They waited for her answer, Ryan leaned on the nearest desk with his arm crossed, that position and his stared reminded Maya of a teacher that was waiting for their student to explain a math equation. Shane took her out of her train of thoughts with a loud mocking "umm!" as if he was doing the thinking for her.

"Well... sure?" She said, not completely sure of her answered."I've obviously seen the solo investigations, but...I'm not sure how to do one."

"Well, basically you go into the most active place in the building, you can pick any piece of equipment with you -"

"Or no equipment at all, just the GoPros." Interjected Shane.

"And you stay there for 10 minutes, or less if you don't feel comfortable." Finished Ryan.

"We'll see"

The rest on the day consisted on them walking Maya through the whole "hunting" process, also guiding her on how to use some of their equipment, constantly joking about how she's going to pay anything she breaks. She knew they were joking but that really anxious side of her was praying she didn't screw anything up. She also hoped she gets something, even though she was on the fence about the supernatural, part of her really hoped she get good enough evidence so maybe even change her into a believer.

That night Maya was back in the hotel room, she started "packing small", they were only going to spend 2 days in Louisville, Kentucky. They were arriving early in the morning in Louisville, and going directly to the Sanatorium, walk the premises during the day, then at night do their investigations. They were also going to spend the night at the Sanatorium, while the rest of the crew stayed at a nearby hotel. Maya was really looking forward to spending the night at Waverly Hills, but she was very sure she wasn't going to sleep that night.

Once in bed Maya found it difficult to fall asleep, she verified her alarms and turned them all on to make sure she woke up on time, she texted her boyfriend but realized he was probably asleep by then, her mind was going everything she learned the past two days. Still with the huge worry "Are the fans going to like this? Like me?" She knew her presence on the show was going to be short, one episode, and it was over. She just hoped she wasn't one of those "special guest" in other shows that always ended up being hated by the fandoms just for being there.

After couple of hours of rolling around in bed Maya finally fell asleep. Her dreams were obviously fueled by her worries, the same dreams over and over, the same scene of her opening her laptop and seeing that the episode she was in was the most disliked in history of the show. Weirdly her dreams had this shadowy figure looming over her.

The sound of someone knocking on her door woke her up. Took a few seconds for Maya to realize what was happening, she looked down at her phone to check the time.

"SHIT!" She jumped out of bed and ran to change into some black jeans and a plain green shirt she found on the floor. Maya quickly put some stuff on her backpack, grabbed her boots and ran to the door. She found a really impatient Ryan standing outside her hotel room.

"I'm sorry! I didn't hear my alarms"

Ryan stared down at her; hair was a mess, no make up, she was holding her boots instead of wearing them. He laughed. "Is okay. We are actually kinda late, let's go."

They made it on time to the airport, with the occasional joke from Ryan and Shane about how Maya tried to 'Sabotage the trip'. Their flight was 4 hours which they spent talking of just watching videos on their phones. During the entire flight Maya couldn't shake the feeling that something was off. She could've sworn she put on her alarms and even verified them. Her phone was dying, in her hurry she forgot to bring her charger with her, before her phone died Maya check her alarms again. Strangely there was none. It was like she never put on alarms or someone had deleted them all. She thought maybe her phone updated in the middle of the night? But it wouldn't explain why they were all gone.

After long boring flight the group was waiting outside for their minibus to pick them up from the airport, TJ had given Maya an extra portable phone charger so she could bring her phone back to life. She quickly called her parents to give them so updates and then her boyfriend. During her call with her boyfriend, Maya really wanted to express her worries but unfortunately she was surrounded by the crew, she didn't wanted to worry them. "It's my anxiety" she told herself over and over. The chills, the nausea, her constant worrying... just anxiety. "Calm down" she told herself.

Once their minibus arrived Maya sat between Ryan and Shane, they were talking about how last time they were in Waverly Hills they were "baby hunters".

"We're professionals now!" Shane exclaimed.

"I'm sure Zak Bagans would disagree" TJ said while closing the minibus doors.

"We'll kill a ghost with our bare hands!"

"Um... I rather not kill anything, even if it's already dead." Maya added quietly. The crew laughed and continued on with their conversations.

Their drive to Waverly Hills was filled with jokes and random silly arguments, at one point in their drive Devon took a photo of Maya and the boys and post it in their social media with "On our way to hunt ghouls with our special guest!". Maya decided to avoid all of Buzzfeed Unsolved social media accounts just to keep her mind away from worries. She didn't even see the video of her meeting the boys that Devon took and posted on their Instagram. 

"Look!" 

Maya look out the windows and saw Waverly Hills Sanatorium in the distance, a sudden rush of anxiety washed over her, the drive and jokes had kept her distracted from her worries but now she was back on train wreck. She really didn't know where her worries were coming from, she wasn't afraid of the building or the possible ghost that lived in it. Something else was taking over her fragile mind.

The minibus had stopped right in front of the imposing building, getting out they were welcomed by Waverly Hills current owners and staff. It was still bright outside around 3pm in Louisville, Kentucky. They were first offered a daylight tour around the premises and inside the building. Massive on the inside as it was on the outside, dusty, long hallways that Maya was sure looked even more terrifying at night. They were given the history of Waverly, even if the crew already knew the story, if was that they decided to have a daylight tour so Maya could have full experience of the trip. 

They decided to head to their hotel to drop off things they didn't needed for their investigation. Maya was given a room by herself, she quickly took a shower and tried to relax in the hot water. Her mind was racing "I'm just scared" she told herself, "It's one scary building". Once out of the shower Maya gathered the things she needed for her night stay at Waverly, the crew gave her with a nice sleeping bag so she didn't had to worry about it. She knew there was no way she was going to change clothes to sleep in, she changed into comfortable black yoga pants, long sleeve fitted gray shirt. and a jacket she could take off when it was time for them to sleep...if she manages to get some sleep. 

She made sure to take the portable phone charge, she really didn't wanted for her phone to die in the middle of the night. Once out of her hotel room she was greeted by the boys and they all head out with their bags and equipment. It was dark outside now which meant the building was supposed to be clear from staff or daytime guest. 

Wavery Hills Sanatorium was ready for them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Totally throw me some suggestion and let me know if my writing sucks lmao.

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know if I made some mistakes.  
See you guys next chapter ;)


End file.
